President Bush today visited the Millennium Corporate Center in
Conshohocken, Pennsylvania to sign bipartisan legislation that
will encourage the cleanup and redevelopment of old industrial
properties cleaning up our environment, creating new jobs and
protecting small businesses from frivolous lawsuits.

The President also announced that his FY 03 budget will double
the funds available through the EPA in FY 02 - from $98 million
to $200 million - to help states and communities around the
country clean up and revitalize brownfields
sites. This is an example of budgeting resources for
programs that get results.

The Presidents FY 03 budget also includes $25 million in
funding for urban redevelopment and brownfields cleanup through
the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

And, the Presidents budget proposes to permanently extend the
Brownfields Tax Incentive, which encourages the redevelopment
of brownfields. According to government estimates,
the $300 million annual investment in the Brownfields Tax
Incentive will leverage approximately $3.4 billion in private
investment and return 8,000 brownfields to productive use.

Background on Todays Presidential Action

Brownfields are abandoned or underutilized industrial or
commercial properties where redevelopment is hindered by
possible environmental contamination and potential liability
under Superfund for parties that purchase or operate these
sites.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that between
500,000 and one million brownfields tarnish the landscapes of
communities across America, typically in urban
areas. Spurring more effective and efficient cleanup
and redevelopment of brownfields will:

Remove environmental hazards from communities; Relieve pressure
to develop pristine open space and farmland; and Revitalize
communities by creating jobs and returning productive property
to local tax rolls.

Located 20 minutes from Philadelphia on the banks of the
Schuylkill River, the Millennium Corporate Center is the
1,000th site redeveloped under Pennsylvanias Land Recycling
Program. The Center is built on the former site of
the Schuylkill Iron Works, and, when completed, it will be the
centerpiece of a 40-acre, $115 million office, recreation and
residential development. More than 500 people
already work at the new development.

Some 40 states have developed voluntary programs that are
cleaning up hundreds of brownfield sites faster and more
effectively, and with less litigation, than under the federal
Superfund program. These programs set high cleanup
standards and provide liability protection under state law for
new owners and operators of brownfields sites.

However, these state programs have been hindered by the lack of
liability protection in federal law. Under Superfund, owners and
operators of a contaminated property can be held liable for the cost of
cleanup, regardless of whether they actually caused any of the
contamination. This potential liability creates a strong incentive for
businesses to avoid redeveloping brownfields.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, in its February 2000 brownfields
survey, Recycling Americas Land, called for a national
commitment to recycle the thousands of brownfields in Americas
cities. They estimated that cleanup and
redevelopment of brownfields could generate $2.4
billion in new tax revenues.

The Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields
Revitalization Act reforms the major hindrance to brownfields
cleanup -- the federal Superfund law. The bill provides
liability protection for prospective purchasers, contiguous
property owners, and innocent landowners and authorizes
increased funding for state and local programs that assess and
clean up brownfields.

The legislation also provides common sense relief from
Superfund liability for small business owners who sent waste or
trash to waste sites, protecting innocent small businesses
while ensuring that polluted sites continue to be cleaned up by
those most responsible for the contamination.

President Bush called for Superfund reform during his campaign,
and worked to craft a bipartisan solution to the problem of
contaminated and abandoned brownfields. Overcoming
years of legislative gridlock on this common sense issue,
Congress approved the bipartisan bill without opposition in
December 2001.